The rhythmic, ground-shivering clack-whump-clack of the water-turbine rolling mill down in the river gorge had not ceased for three days and three nights.
Out of its three-high roll stands emerged the sinews of the new world. Nonstop, thirty-three-foot lengths of one-hundred-pound-per-yard mild steel T-section rail. Still smoking from the spray of cold river water, each rail had a six-inch-wide base pipe rim, an upright web. A bulbous, hardened crown shaped to cradle the coned rims of heavy steel wheels.
Lord Giles Croft stood on the crowned earthen ground base at Milepost One of the Southern Mountain Pass, his brass sighting scope mounted securely on its ash tripod. Through the thirty-power optics, he sighted down a string of white cedar stakes driven into the center of the roadbed.
“Toby,” Giles called out, his voice sharp against the wind whistling through the granite defile. “Your centerline offset at Station Forty-Two is off by five-sixteenths of an inch. I can see the dogleg through the aiming cross without even checking the fine-scale.”
A hundred yards ahead, Toby Karr froze mid-stride.
The youth was strapped into a harness of his own invention. A geared dual-spool chalk-reel mounted at his chest, a notched wooden gauge bar tucked beneath his arm, and pockets bulging with hardened steel cut spikes. He hurriedly set the brass-tipped line weight over the survey tack, squinting down the string with wild concentration.
